Blog Hiatus

My daughter, son and their families are all arriving and I'm in a dither. It's been a long, long time since we've ALL been together in Hawaii. We had to get a child's carseat, high chair, diapers, etc. Oh my!

My older grandson, JD was here when he was about 18 months old. I'm sure he doesn't remember much. This will be his younger brother's first time here and little RK will also be about 18 months old. I wonder if he'll love the beach as much as JD did.

Both Tiffany and Keola were very accomplished swimmers in high school and amassed a box full of ribbons and trophies. Other parents could not believe that their mother from Hawaii never learned how to swim.

When Tiffany brought little KC to the beach for the first time, KC was extremely apprehensive.

In fact, KC hung so tenaciously on to Tiffany to avoid the moving water that we were all reduced to tears of laughter.

Eventually.... KC got used to it and today she is a very graceful swimmer just like her mother and loves to boogie board at Waikiki and snorkel at Hanauma Bay.

Almost a decade later, JD arrived at Ala Moana Beach.

He was nervous at first too, but quickly got into the adventure of it.

As a matter of fact, we had to keep constant watch on him because he would run into the ocean if we weren't careful. Even having water splashed on his face did not deter him.

And so... here we are awaiting their arrival with JD's little brother, RK.

It will be interesting to see how a day at the beach with all three grandchildren with go.

I shall be taking a month (or so) long hiatus while the whole family celebrates being together at last.

Have a wonderful summer everybody!

Painting Project Completed

It's done! Yay!

Shacky and his team did a wonderful job painting our house. It was great that he had us do a final inspection before his team left and asked us to tell him if there were any changes or places we wanted him to take care of.

The color turned out just fine and we're pleased with the contrast trim. Shacky also secured the gutters way at the top that had been blown loose by the strong winds in our area.

We're especially happy with the caulking he and his team did of the eaves. It looks so much more finished now.

It used to scare me to watch the painters way up high, but they obviously knew what they were doing and completed the job safely.

Now on to the next project on our list!

Hurricane preparation!

Shacky's Painting: Day 1 and 2

After getting quotes, checking out references and much deliberation, we decided on Shacky's Painting to do the job.

Since the other two painting contractors were charging more than Shacky, I was rather resigned to the fact that Shacky's team might not do as thorough a job.

The first thing they did was to power wash the house on Day #1. It caused a lot of paint chips to flake off. When I mentioned to Shacky that the paint chips were rather hard to sweep up, he came with a blower and cleaned it up right away.

What we were really pleased about was their caulking job on Day #2. Shacky said he was surprised that our building contractor as well as the previous painter who did the original painting 13 years ago did not caulk where they should have.

Shacky and his hardworking crew did a lot of sweating caulking every joist on our very high roof!

I'd been noticing those spaces in the roof joists under the eaves, but thought that's how things were done in Hawaii.

It looked rather unfinished every time I looked out my window.

The building contractor had also used particle board for the trim work and didn't caulk it, so it was pretty rotten. Shacky replaced it with real wood and caulked it.

All the fellows were as friendly as can be, polite and receptive to questions and concerns.

You can see how much better it looks now under the eaves.

So far so good!

House Project: Adding More Towel Bars

Our children are arriving with their families and we'll be having a full house for a month. With ten people in the house, there will be lots more wet towels to hang.

We'd already equipped our guest bathroom with three towel bars but our two little grandsons will be using our bathroom. So we figured we could use another bar.

Art removed the single bar which left holes in the wall. I filled them in with plaster.

We took off the one by the window, raised the towel bar on the left of the shower and installed the matching one from the window side.

We bought another towel  bar to put under the window that wasn't a true match (don't look too closely please) and then patched that wall a bit.

Thank goodness, I kept small jars of paints for each room when we painted them 12 years ago. I added a little layer of water in each one so they wouldn't totally dry out.

I'm pleased to say I don't think anybody would notice my patch jobs.

Neurologist Visit

I went for my neurologist appointment recently and it both reassured and gave me reason for concern.

When I met the neurologist, I was just a teeny bit surprised at how young he looked. I looked at all his diplomas on the wall and saw that he'd gotten them only a couple of years ago. However, after consulting with him, I felt confident that he must have gotten the latest research and that he was a doctor I could rely on.

He looked at my CT scans and said there wasn't any serious abnormalities except for the cyst in my sinus. Just when I relaxed, he said that the CT scan isn't the optimum way to look at my brain. An MRI would be necessary for that. He wanted to look for tumors.

What?!?

I'd been concerned about frontal lobe dementia, but he didn't see evidence of that in the CT scan. He said that some of the things that would be warning signs of dementia would be getting lost while driving, mood swings, violent dreams, forgetting things right away, burning food during preparation, etc.

A memory test was administered. I had to remember three things told at the beginning and after other instructions had been given. I had to recite a sentence back, follow written and spoken directions, spell a word backwards, etc. My balance was tested as well as strength and reflexes. I scored 100% on the memory which was great to hear.

The doctor was surprised but still concerned about my lack of smell. He sent me for blood tests to see if there were lead, arsenic and I forget what else in my system.

I was also told to get some specific scented oils (lavender or eucalyptus, lemon, clove and rose) which I was to sniff twice a day for the next 3-4 months. He didn't think it would help but he wanted me to try anyway. I'm going to tell you now that it was miserable locating them.

Can you guess which scent was the hardest to get?  I went to Longs Drugs (CVS) and Bath and Body Work and could only get the lavender. All the other scents were blends. We finally found clove and lemon at Walmart, but no rose anywhere. So yes, Amazon!

So far, I can't tell the scents apart. Art sniffed them and says they are all definitely different.  Ah well... I'll keep trying.

Several days later, the doctor called to tell me that my blood test showed problems with my auto-immunity which could be a sign of lupus that has lack of smell as one of the symptoms.

Arrrghhhh....

So back I go for another blood test because it could possibly be a bad reading. However, said the good doctor, "Your liver and kidneys are fine and your thyroid numbers as well."

Sigh... I know he was trying to raise my spirits. I do like this doctor very much.

Eating a Barracuda

Our nephew, Cody texted us that he was out at a Kaneohe Hawaiian fish pond and had caught a couple of fish. He wanted to know if we would like to have one.

Fresh fish?

"Sure." I texted back.

Then he texted that it was a barracuda.

Barracuda? Can you eat a barracuda?

Aren't they the fish that's really scary with big teeth like a piranha?

When Cody arrived, he asked for a big cookie sheet so he could lay the fish on it.

Really? That big?

Sorry to say, I forgot to take a photo of the barracuda before mom cut off its head and tail.

You'll have to take my word for it that it took up the entire cookie sheet and it was definitely a big fish.

Mom cooked it right away. She salted and peppered, floured and fried it with pieces of garlic in oil.

Cody couldn't stay for dinner because he had to leave to go to work.

I grated some ginger root, added shoyu (soy sauce) and drizzled it over the fish.

You know what?

It wasn't fishy tasting at all. Well, it was a fish, but wasn't fishy. Ah well... I hope you know what I mean.

Cody says fresh fish doesn't taste fishy.

It was gooooood....

I mean really, really good.

Cody says he'll bring us more fish next time he goes fishing.

And if Cody says it's a piranha, I think we'd still give it a try.

We do have the best nephews ever!

Is It Really Art?

I was reading Cathy's blog, Upcycling at its best... where she posted a photo of a sculpture called Powder the Plow Horse made of scrap metal and junk. I thought it was creative and powerful.

However, it reminded me of a sculpture that was put up in Chicago at the Ralph H. Metcalfe Federal Building which is where the Chicago EPA offices are housed. Art was working there at the time as a branch chief and was quite excited about the sculpture they'd heard that had been commissioned. Frank Stella is the artist.

The sculpture is called The Town-Ho's Story which is from a chapter in Moby Dick.

According to the GSA (U.S. General Services Administration) Stella apparently said the sculpture “is related to the urban industrial environment; that is what this part of the world is about. It’s related to Chicago’s great architecture and the quality of steel that goes into its buildings.”

This is from the GSA:

"The Town-Ho’s Story comprises myriad elements assembled atop a lattice-like pedestal.  The sculpture’s roughly textured components appear gathered together by some powerful magnetic or gravitational force, while still maintaining a pulsating, shape-shifting sense of movement.  Stella’s fabrication of the sculpture involved his improvisational assembly of salvaged metal parts, over which he poured molten aluminum to create a shimmering, lacey veil that introduces a note of delicacy into an otherwise robust composition.  Similarly, the sculpture’s open-frame base and the mesh grids at its apex frame and soften a dense core."

That's a lot of words to justify this artwork.

When the sculpture was installed, Art took us down to see it. I was shocked. Everyone Art talked to at work were pretty much shaking their heads.

I walked around it, stood back from it, got close to it. Hated it. I thought the EPA would choose a sculpture of environmental beauty which is the goal of EPA, I would think.

All I saw was trash. We wondered how much was paid for this monstrosity. 

I wonder if it's still there. 

Phishing?

Whenever I get any comment that says, "Nice blog. Come and visit mine." or "Great blog" and then the link to their blog, it makes me quite suspicious.

This time I got something from Indonesia. A foreign (sorry to say) Indian sounding name also makes me get my spamdar buzzing.

Wikipedia lists phishing as:

Phishing is the fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by disguising oneself as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

I clicked on his name and got this. Looks like it's some kind of insurance (?) thing or could it be something else?

Whatever... I just erased it. Better to be safe than sorry.

More Careless Clothing Holes!

Dang it! I did it again!

There have been occasions when I'm cleaning the kitchen sink with the bleach cleaner where I've made a hole in my blouse. I'm pretty careful now to wear an apron when working on kitchen clean-up with my bleach spray bottle.

I was cleaning the bathroom this morning while Art was walking with his high school buddy. I normally have Zumba at this time, but our trainer is on vacation. Normally, Art is the bathroom cleaner upper after he gets back from his walks. Is there anyone more sexy than a husband who cleans the bathroom for you.

Anyway, I decided to use the the kitchen bleach cleaner on the bits of mold I was seeing on the plastic shower liner.

My apron was in the kitchen. That's my excuse anyway.

I was wearing one of my favorite L.L. Bean blouses and new shorts.

Arrrghhh!  Doggone it!

I sure hope I won't find holes on my shorts when I wash it.

Ah well, holes in pants seem to be the fashion these days anyway.

Disposing an External Hard Drive

My Western Digital External Hard Drive died a few months ago (my computer wouldn't recognize it) and I was waiting for an E-waste day to be scheduled. They said you shouldn't throw these in the trash because of the metals in the drive.

However, even though the drive data is dead and can't be accessed by me, they warn you that all data can be somehow recovered by unscrupulous people with the know-how and sophisticated equipment.

I'm sure nobody would actually do it, but since I wasn't 100% positive I wanted to make sure the hard drive data was truly, truly dead.

My super techie whiz son-in-law said to get some powerful magnets and put it on the hard drive for a few minutes.

I did happen to have a couple of very strong magnets that my brother had given us a long time ago.

Then I read online that you would need really, really, REALLY strong magnets to do the job.

Hmmm...

So then I started reading more stuff online.

It WASN'T easy, but Art removed the outer plastic shell of the hard drive.

And this is what we saw.

I saw videos and read more information about how to destroy the data.

One video mentioned drilling a hole in the data disk inside the drive.

Another person said drilling one hole wouldn't do it and you needed to smash the disk into pieces.

Right....

First off, it's NOT easy to get to the disk. Those aren't just screws holding everything together but teeny rivets.

Art had to drill the rivets off and pull back that hard metal cover.

Then we discovered that the disk was really, really hard... SUPER hard!

Art managed to finally drill a hole in the disk, but it was very difficult.

I happened to be reading a book about an apocalypse where the heroine is told that she needs to destroy the data on her computer with a hammer.

So I told Art he should get the hammer and shatter the data disk.

Nope.

Tried hammering, tried banging a screw driver into it.

Sigh...

I hope the magnet and one drilled hole did the trick.

Ah well...

Then I looked online and found the wikiHow site that explained How to Destroy a Hard Drive. One of the suggestions was to bring it to a firing range and shooting it.

Good grief!

Well, I'm just going to have to keep my fingers crossed.

Walking Life's Tightrope

Sometimes Life feels like a tightrope. We could be walking confidently, balancing everything in our lives, happily thinking we'll get to the other end without a problem.

Then suddenly, there's a wobble, you lose your footing and have to focus everything you have in you to find balance again.

We went to visit one of my favorite cousins the other day at the hospital. OK, all my cousins are my favorites, but Walt is my brilliant, always generous,  kind, loving and fun cuz. He's made me laugh with his sometimes irreverent comments on my blog posts.

Several years ago, he had a bout with cancer, but it seemed that everything was removed and he was back to normal. He was watching his diet and doing all he could to maintain his health for his beautiful family.

He was a coffee connoisseur and used to roast his own beans which he would share with us. He'd tell us exactly where the beans came from, the temperature it was roasted at and the length of time he roasted it.

When we went to see him at the hospital, he looked better than I expected despite the fact that I knew cancer was ravaging his body. We are hopeful that chemo and radiation will work a miracle.

What really made an impression on me was his strength and courage. He smiled and laughed with us in an effort to cheer us as we were trying to cheer him somehow. He didn't try to hide anything, but he worked hard to smile for our benefit. Ganbatte is a Japanese word that means to persevere and to try your best. Walt is the epitome of that word.

I woke up the following morning remembering a dream I had. I was trying to stabilize a tower of blocks. No matter how hard I tried, the tower kept falling. Art came along and together we tried to attach velcro to the blocks to stick them together and make them stay up. I woke up before I found out if it worked.

Mom always told me that with Buddhism, I must understand that I cannot pray to change things. What will be, will be. What I can pray for is strength and peace. Well, I can pray for those things for Walt, but he seems to have more strength than I do.

I'm just going to try to balance my life now and do what we can to support Walt and his family, but if any of you can pray for a miracle, I'd sure appreciate it.

Social Security Scam

For several days, we kept getting a phone call from somebody in Washington, D.C. It was an automated call saying it was the Social Security office. They wanted to inform me that there was some kind of breach and my social security number had been stolen.

I  was to press #1 to speak to someone. I almost did. Then I thought I'd look online first and this is what I found.

There was a message from the Office of the Inspector General of the Social Security Administration.

"The Inspector General of Social Security, Gail S. Ennis, is warning citizens about a caller-ID “spoofing” scheme misusing the Social Security Administration (SSA) Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) Fraud Hotline phone number. The OIG has received recent reports of phone calls displaying the Fraud Hotline number on a caller-ID screen. This is a scam; OIG employees do not place outgoing calls from the Fraud Hotline 800 number. Citizens should not engage with these calls or provide personal information."

There was also this message from the Federal Trade Commission.

So yup! It was another scam. I guess we picked up the call because it appeared to be from Washington, D.C. and I thought it could be my son.

Ah well...

Be careful, everybody.



And to all of you in the U.S. I'd like to wish you a very Happy Independence Day.

POSTSCRIPT:

We've now gotten several calls saying they're from Apple Support with a recording telling us our iCloud account has been breached. We are instructed to press #1 to speak to someone.

Sigh...

So many scams out there!!!

Painting Our House: Step One and Two

Step One was choosing a painter. I asked friends and relatives for recommendations, met with three painters, got their bids, checked references, made a decision. Would you believe one painter cost twice as much as the other two? However, he seemed to really know his stuff and explained the thoroughness with which he would complete the job. And yet... he's twice as much and more... Sigh...

Don't believe Art if he tells you that I  chose Shacky's Painting because he is also a Waipahu High School alumni.

The hardest part was telling the other two painters that we would not be going with them. They returned such lovely texts saying they were happy I let them know.

Now came Step Two which is choosing the color.

We weren't given much of a choice 13 years ago when the renovation was done. The painter gave us a flyer with matching colors and we chose what we thought would be gray with white trim.

Turned out the colors were so close you hardly noticed the trim. The house looks like a gray elephant. Still, the painters were nice and the paint job has lasted longer than people expected.

We didn't want to make that same color mistake again. We looked through a paint fan deck from Sherwin Williams to choose the color we wanted. There were a gazillion colors.

We decided on a couple of grays. (Does that say something about our personality that we just can't seem to change our preferences once we've set them?)

We showed the colors to Shacky and told him we were worried the gray and white colors might be too close again. That white paper is actually painted Extra White.

On the other hand choosing a dark color in Hawaii would make it fade faster.

The other problem is looking at chips indoor vs. under electric lights vs. sunlight is very different.

Shacky advised us to buy sample paints and paint a swatch of the colors on the house to check it out in sunlight.

So that's what we did.

This was very interesting to see. For one thing, the colors, when painted didn't look exactly like the color on the fan deck. On the other hand, we painted opposite sides of the house and the colors looked different then too. They also looked different when painted on masonry as opposed to wood.

Sigh...

So we'll go with the darker color although we worry that it will fade faster. Mom thinks it will make the house hotter (although she likes the darker color better). On the other hand, the trim work will be seen better. On the other hand....oh... I don't know.

Thinking Like a Little Boy

We were walking through the mall the other day and I saw that a new store was going to be opened. It was called Pups of War. I saw some soldiers standing outside looking in, but I didn't know what it was about.

There were a lot of plastic toy guns, rifles, machine guns and other weapons displayed in the window.

The store opened recently and I saw children playing inside.

I looked on the store website and saw that it was a miniature town where children could shoot each other with those weapons that had Nerf ball ammunition.

Ummmmm....

Seriously?

I'm a retired teacher.

I don't like what they were imprinting on little children's minds.

The rule is your child has to be three years old to play with an accompanying adult.

Three?

Seriously?

Art was quiet.

He played with BB guns when he was a kid. He was in the Air Force. He had to learn how to handle a weapon even though he worked as a spy satellite engineer.

He gave a rueful smile and said, "It looks like a lot of fun for a kid."

"What?!" I glared at him.  "Do you know what you're teaching a kid as he runs around the toy town shooting at everybody?"

"But I'm anti-NRA and all for gun control now," he answered. "Playing with toy guns as a child didn't influence me. You have to think like a little boy."

Seriously?

I'm not taking my grandsons anywhere near that place.

Then again, that's just me.

I wonder what my son would say.

One Way to Eat Tofu

I'm not a great cook. And since my sense of taste isn't that great either, I like more flavor in my food so I can appreciate it.

Tofu is very bland. I used to scramble it with eggs to stretch the meal. I even added it to meatloaf when the kids were little. I don't think they appreciated it.

We all like eating it here in Hawaii. Mom likes the firm. I definitely prefer the soft, silkier texture. Mom insists the firm tofu has more vitamins. We compromise and take turns getting the firm and soft.

This is how we're enjoying it now.

I grate fresh ginger into a bowl and add shoyu (soy sauce).

Very simple.

Then I drizzle the ginger-soy sauce mixture over the tofu. I really like it. I even dip the kamaboko into it. Kamaboko is fish cake. We use it in Hawaii as a garnish in saimin (noodle soup), fried noodles, whatever.

As you can see I'm all about simple recipes.